Good morning... "I really don't want 2020 to end," she said quietly as we talked in her garage, protected from the drizzly rain. "2020 will always be the last year my husband was alive." Her deep sorrow is not alone. For many of us, 2020 is the last year our spouse or our parent, our friend or our [...]
Good morning... As the sun sets on 2020, we see more clearly the single purpose for which we are born. With all of this year's chaos and clashing, death and disconnection, unrest and uncertainty, our single purpose rests firmly in focus. Henri Nouwen said it well in a post from this week. ****** Henri Nouwen DAILY MEDITATION | [...]
Good morning... I happened upon this YouTube retelling of a story I remember from childhood. When Paul Harvey recorded these words in 1965, I was just two years old. Now listening again, I understand more deeply why Jesus was born into our world as a baby, just like you and me. It’s in Christ that we find out [...]
Good morning... Tonight Northside Church presents Christmas Candlelight Vespers 2020. Tune in from the comfort of your home on Sunday at 6:00PM. No registration required. This evening of Christmas choral music and carol arrangements will include a professional chamber choir joined by a string quartet, pianos, and organ. Our theme, "Christ’s Light, Eden’s Bloom,” will bring music of [...]
Good morning... “If you were a pancake,” the interviewer asked my daughter over the phone, “where would you be on the stack? Top. Middle. Bottom. Why?” This quirky question sparked a creative conversation around our family's dinner table before it seeped out to saturate our online community. Look at the answers piling up from yesterday's blog post One [...]
Good morning... Many of you in our online community have enjoyed the chapel services created by my husband, Steve, who is the chaplain at a local high school. Usually the Upper School students cram into a packed chapel and experience a weekly service in person, but COVID has limited large gatherings indoors. Instead Steve records his weekly faith [...]
Good morning... I didn't say a thing aloud, but my heart was crying out to God, shedding quiet tears, sharing the anguished lament of loved ones, hoping with all my heart, soul, and mind for the complete healing of a young woman about to undergo surgery for brain cancer. She and her young husband were separated in different [...]
Good morning... Sitting social distanced beneath our back porch, she pulled out her phone and texted me photos of a fun activity she had done with her grandchildren, tracing their outstretched arms, painting and cutting out the paper arms, and sending them to their great grandmother with a personal love poem. She gave me permission to share this [...]
Good morning... Walking our dog Tate, I came upon a young mom and two adorable daughters, quite likely around ages four and six. "It's our neighbors' table!" the youngest blurted out, excited about the newly placed wooden table with two long benches sitting beneath the trees at the end of their driveway. Talking back and forth a while, [...]
Good morning... It seems many in our online community enjoy the simple and uplifting chapel messages my husband Steve shares, virtually due to COVID, with his community of upper school students, faculty, and administrators. Steve's weekly chapel talks are a lot like the children's messages I experienced in our Lutheran Church growing up in Berea, Ohio. We kids [...]
